Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Assessment Of Hand Gestures Using Wearable Sensors And Fuzzy Logic, Angel Cardenas, Ryan Messersmith, Will Newcomb

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Hand dexterity and motor control are critical in our everyday lives because a significant portion of the daily motions we perform are with our hands and require some degree of repetition and skill. Therefore, development of technologies for hand and extremity rehabilitation is a significant area of research that will directly help patients recovering from hand debilities sustained from causes ranging from stroke and Parkinson’s disease to trauma and common injuries. Cyclic activity recognition and assessment is appropriate for hand and extremity rehabilitation because a majority of our essential motions are cyclic in their nature. For a patient on the …

Noninvasive Screening Of A Fecal Biomarker For Human Necrotizing Enterocolitis (Nec), Daniela Campa, Kyle Sullivan

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a disease that predominantly affects preterm infants. Of the 10% of preterm neonates that develop NEC, about one in four cases results in death. The pathophysiology presents as inflammation of intestinal epithelial cell lining and subsequent tissue death, sometimes resulting in intestinal perforations. The underlying mechanisms have yet to be comprehensively identified. Diagnosis--the rate limiting step in reducing critical disease-onset-to-treatment time--is based on relatively nonspecific signs, impeding early and accurate diagnosis. This project, a collaborative effort between Santa Clara and Stanford Universities, aims to improve current diagnostic methods by identifying the first verifiable and useful fecal …

Nebuflask: Advancing Usability Of Nebulizers To Increase Patient Compliance, Murray Bartho, Michael Breshock, Megan Nolte

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Nebulizers are ubiquitous in the world of medicine. Any patient diagnosed with asthma, pneumonia, cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), or any other severe lung disease often use a nebulizer in order to deliver medication to the lungs. Although these technologies are quite common, they are surprisingly outdated. The most commonly used nebulizers today are bulky, loud, awkward to carry around, and must be plugged into an outlet. These aspects of the nebulizer make it a nuisance to use in general and almost impossible to use outside of the home or clinic. The ultrasonic and mesh nebulizers do address …

High-Throughput, Portable Microfluidic Aptamer Assay, Atticus Mccoy, Matthew Curtin

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Aptamer-based assays are a powerful platform for sensing a wide variety of biochemical targets, including drugs, disease biomarker, and biomolecules. However, aptamer assays often lack rapid identification and high-throughput screening. Performing an aptamer-based assay on a microfluidic device is a promising solution to increase throughput, portability, and sensitivity. In this paper, we present a microfluidic device capable of running aptamer-based assays. Our device utilizes normally-closed valves and a central micropump to move fluids throughout the chip. One chip could theoretically be scaled up to run multiple assays, and multiple of these microfluidic devices could be run in parallel to increase …

Production Of Living Nanoparticles For Blood Cancer Therapy, Michael Pierotti, Matthew Piro, Peter Mitchell

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Current cancer therapies leave much to be desired because they are very harmful to the patient and cause a significant decrease in quality of life. Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CAR) are a promising novel approach for treating specific types of leukemia due to their binding affinity for proteins expressed solely on leukemia B cells. This approach increases specificity of how cells receive treatment, thus allowing for the destruction of cancerous cells while leaving the healthy cells unharmed. In this experiment, we show that production of CAR expressing exosomes (liposome like vesicles produced naturally by human cells) is possible through cell transfection. …

Engineered Living Nanoparticles For The Treatment Of Inflammatory Diseases, Annie Brown, Alex Campanelli, Adarsh Tantry

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a widespread, debilitating autoimmune disease characterized by painful inflammation of the joints. Current treatments for RA are either ineffective, expensive, or have undesirable effects, such as an adverse immune response. To mitigate these effects, we have designed an exosome-based treatment for inflammation. We chose to utilize exosomes for their longer half-life in the body, better penetrative capacity, and biocompatibility, thus improving upon previous RA treatments. To do this, we created a stable cell line to produce exosomes modified at the surface to express a tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR), which possesses the ability to act as …

Modifying The Size Of Nanopores Of Alginate Microcapsules, Andrea Filler, Jordan Levine, Jerard Roniel Madamba, Natalie Ploof

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Alginate hydrogels provide desirable biocompatibility and material properties for various biomedical applications, but are limited by the polymer's natural pore size. With the rise of nanotechnology, the desired crosslinked pore size range of 30 nm to 100 nm has not yet been achieved. This project aimed to develop a method to increase the pore size of alginate-based hydrogels in a reproducible manner without compromising their structural integrity. Experimental methods included altering alginate composition using carboxymethyl cellulose or gelatin and inducing conformational changes via Mach-1TM mechanical compression. Fluorescence microscopy was used to visualize the diffusion of FITC-dextran weight markers and fluorescent …

Cervis: Cervical Cancer Early Response Visual Identification System, Evangelia Bouzos, Ivy Fernandes, Marina Predovic

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Our goal is to make a positive impact in the cervical cancer diagnostic space through the development of an accurate, cost effective solution that enables women in low resource settings to test for cervical cancer on a frugal and effective platform. In developed countries, we rely on regular preventive care, such as pap smears, to identify any cellular abnormalities that may indicate the disease state. However, due to the high cost and laboratory requirements of this procedure, women in low resource settings typically do not have access to this procedure. Since they are not regularly screened and often have little …

Meshr: A Modular, Economical Skin Graft Hand Roller, Maggie Alt, Josée Fournier, Madeline Krenek, Will Paton

Bioengineering Senior Theses

In South Africa and around the world, the rates of severe burns are a significant health issue. Skin grafts are used to improve the function and appearance of the burned area and reduce the amount of time a patient is in the hospital. To minimize the amount of skin needed and maximize the coverage of the graft, the harvested sample is meshed in a lattice pattern so it can expand and graft a much larger surface area. Unfortunately, the current methods and devices used in both high and low-income countries have been optimized for hospitals with larger budgets and more …

Milkguard: Low-Cost, Polymer-Based Sensor For The Detection Of Escherichia Coli In Donated Human Breast Milk, Maggie May, Nicholas Kikuchi, Matthew Zweber

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Breast milk, the gold standard for infant nutrition, could prevent up to 13% of child deaths worldwide. However, many mothers are unable to breastfeed due to health conditions and other factors. Because of this, a network of more than 500+ human milk banks, which collect and distribute donated breast milk to infants, have emerged worldwide. However, operational costs to ensure the safety of this milk remain time-intensive and costly.

There are no existing diagnostics for rapid and on-site detection of bacterial contaminants in donated milk. Currently, many milk banks send samples to outside laboratories for bacterial culturing tests, which take …

Active Auxetic Heel Support For Achilles Tendon Therapy, Anna Hinrichs, Kseniya Malukhina, Ishaan Sharma, Micaela Vierra

Bioengineering Senior Theses

The Achilles tendon, which stretches from the calf to the ankle, can be injured due to repeated daily activities or overstretching. In severe cases a tear in the tendon can prevent athletes from performing in games as well as individuals from completing their daily tasks. Achilles tendon injuries affect millions of people. The severe pain that occurs upon injury can take months to improve and for the Achilles tendon to heal. Our goal is to design an auxetic support to provide comfort, help heal the tendon, and allow the individual to continue to be active through the natural healing process. …

Hands-Free Wearable Crutch, Cooper Schwabe, Marcus Kraus, Tk Wasserman

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Traditional crutches have long been the primary mobility aid for patients with a lower-leg injuries. However, forced to place most of their weight on their hands and underarms while balancing on only one leg, users find that such crutches present a physically demanding, uncomfortable, and inconvenient means of getting around. To combat these issues, we propose a hands-free crutch that will attach only to the injured leg, increasing maneuverability while preserving natural walking mechanics. Within the last decade, other hands-free crutch solutionshave proven to increase user satisfaction by reducing fatigue, increasing safety and efficiency by allowing users to perform additional …

Development Of Stable Cell Lines For The Production Of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Targeted Exosomes, Anja Beard, Zach Ehlinger

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Exosomes represent a promising new approach to targeted drug delivery. Current research explores the ability of these naturally occurring nanoparticles to transport therapeutic cargo to specific tissues of the body and to subsequently enter the cells of those tissues. Human cells act as an efficient source of these nano-vesicles. Our project ultimately focuses on the establishment of a cell line that produces exosomes tagged with the RD114 protein, which allows for the targeting of hematopoietic stem cells. With the ability to deliver therapeutic cargo to these specific cells, exosomes can serve as a vehicle for many effective hematopoietic stem cell …

Engineering Synthetic Antibody For Prostate Cancer Detection, Kimberley Gonzalez, Tatum Prosswimmer, Cassandra Stawicki

Bioengineering Senior Theses

This Senior Design project seeks to manufacture an E. Coli based antibody for prostate cancer detection using unnatural amino acid incorporation. Current diagnostic techniques take advantage of the high binding specificity of monoclonal antibodies to detect the concentration of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in a blood sample. Production of this technology is lengthy and costly, while simultaneously incurring countless ethical problems related to animal welfare and accessibility. This project proposes a synthetic antibody that can be produced efficiently in single E. Coli cells and exhibits complementary binding to PSA. By incorporating an unnatural amino acid into a recombinant peptide sequence, …

Machine Learning Offers Predictive Insight Into The Silver Nanomaterial Protein Corona, Matthew Findlay

Bioengineering Senior Theses

The use of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) in consumer and commercial products is increasing rapidly. The small size and high surface reactivity of ENMs gives them a range of attractive properties, and allows them to be incorporated into various materials. These properties make ENMs very appealing to modern industry, but also make ENMs toxic, causing serious health and environmental concerns. This toxicity is largely driven by the formation of a protein corona on the surface of ENMs. This protein corona is caused by proteins encountered in biological systems that bind to the surface of (ENMs). Despite the importance of the protein …

Exosome Membrane Bound Tnf-Receptor For The Treatment Of Rheumatoid Arthritis, Natalie Duong, Kevin Curley

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that causes painful inflammation of the synovium of the patient’s joints. However, current treatments for RA have a variety of drawbacks. They often are ineffective, expensive, invasive, risky, cause an immune response, and/ or only provide short term relief. Thus, we developed a new treatment for preventing inflammation: TNF-receptors anchored onto exosome surfaces. Exosomes are nanovesicles that are naturally secreted by most of the cells in our bodies. The many benefits of using exosomes include non-immunogenicity, natural stability in the body, and non-invasiveness. We have demonstrated that exosome membrane bound TNF-receptors have the …

Portable, Powerless Automation Of Valve Actuation For Microfluidic Large Scale Integration Technology, Andrew Schmidt, Matthew Fitzgerald

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Microfluidic large-scale integration (mLSI) is an emerging field that has the potential to fully automate the biological experimentation and technology development. mLSI offers high-throughput, while maintaining reduced costs and sample size in biochemical tests and experiments. The pneumatic control systems, and the use of solenoid valves that are needed for mLSI make this technology bulky and limits its use to specialized labs. Moreover, since the field is relatively new, few scientists are trained in microfluidic chip design and microfabrication. Eliminating the peripheral equipment from standard testing protocol will allow mLSI to be used in point-of-care settings and more widespread usage …

Phosphate Contaminant Detection In Water Through A Paper-Based Microfluidic Device, Brandon Miura, Alex Wagner, Philip Wu

Bioengineering Senior Theses

This report describes a project aimed at developing a low-cost, portable, on-site, user-friendly system for detecting different concentrations of phosphate in drinking water. Phosphate is a natural chemical, but toxic in large concentrations; detection is therefore important to avoid drinking contaminated water. Despite this fact, no cheap, and/or nontoxic system for phosphate detection is yet on the market.

The detection system utilizes a paper-based microfluidic device to automate the electrochemical detection process, which normally requires expert use of lab equipment. When combined with a portable potentiostat that works with a mobile app, the device will allow untrained users to determine …

Engineering Synthetic Antibody By Expanded Genetic Code, Elizabeth Batiuk, Tracy Nguyen, Casey Kiyohara

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Antibodies are extensively used in research for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes because of their unrivaled specificity and biomarker binding strengths.1 Currently, monoclonal antibodies are most commonly used because of their production consistency and purity.1 However, there are significant ethical and economic challenges associated with producing monoclonal antibodies.¹ Synthetic antibodies provide a promising alternative to monoclonal antibodies in both clinical and research applications.²

Our proposed synthetic antibody system incorporates 3,4-dihydroxy-l-phenylalanine (L-DOPA), an unnatural amino acid used to increase binding affinity, into a peptide sequence specific for the prostate specific antigen (PSA), a biomarker for prostate cancer. This addition is …

Droplet-Microfluidic Device For The Characterization Of Perfluorinated Emulsions, Daniel Horvath, Nam Ahn Tran

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Microfluidics is being used throughout academia and industry today to perform large numbers of experiments with extremely small volumes of fluids. By doing this, those that study microfluidics hope to raise through-put, lower cost and limit the environmental impact of scientific research.2 Complementing the increased use of microfluidics, the use of perfluorinated emulsions in the field of droplet-based microfluidics is also experiencing large growth.3 However, many of the products available today are either proprietary and/or poorly understood. While some chemical structures are known, some of the most scientifically intriguing perfluorinated oils and surfactants do not have their chemical structures or …

Intracranial Pressure Sensor, Matthew Murray, Jared Shimada

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension (IIH) also known as Pseudotumor Cerebri is a condition resulting from an increase of Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF), a fluid that helps to protect the brain and spinal cord, in the cranial cavity. Currently the only treatment method for this health condition is the draining of the fluid via implanted intracranial shunts that get clogged in approximately 50% of patients. Clogged shunts can only be detected when IIH symptoms begin to reappear. We propose to create an ultrasound-read intracranial pressure sensor used to supplement shunts implanted in patients who suffer from Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension. This will provide immediate …

Bolstering The Cell Membrane Of S. Cerevisiae For Efficient Bioethanol Production From Lignocellulosic Biomass, Conary Meyer, Matt Kubit

Bioengineering Senior Theses

With the need for alternatives to fossil fuels becoming more prevalent, biofuels has become an increasingly attractive alternative. Traditional biofuel production was quickly halted as a result of its ethical complications, leading to the development of secondgeneration biofuels. This system utilizes plant waste instead of food as its starting material, allowing for rapid recycling of this widely available and cheap carbon source. This switch was, however, coupled with complications. Of those, the most prominent is the inevitable release of acetic acid resulting from the breakdown of the lignocellulosic waste. This acetic acid is challenging to neutralize or extract in a …

Suture Passing Device For Hyoid Susupension In Sleep Apnea Surgery, Corbin Craven, Nicholas Leavengood, Solomon Mulugeta

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a condition which is characterized by momentary pauses in a person’s breathing while they are sleeping. Current treatment options for sleep apnea include CPAP, oral appliances, and surgery. Of these options, hyoid suspension surgery is one of the most effective, but is significantly underutilized. This is due to the fact that performing hyoid suspension surgery by current methods is complicated and can be painful for the patient. As our senior design project, we designed and prototyped a novel medical device that facilitates fast, easy, and consistent hyoid suspension surgery. Through functional testing of our device …

Preclinical Study For Targeted Breast Cancer Therapy, Katie Bond, Lauren Mccormick, Jordan Karroll

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Cancer is a devastating disease which affects millions. For this reason, many scientists are working to develop drugs that can specifically target cancer cells within the body. Preclinical trials are an important phase in the drug development process, as they allow scientists to determine whether or not a drug candidate may be viable for human use. Targeted therapies can be achieved by using monoclonal antibodies as well as small molecule drugs. In this study we compared the effects of two control monoclonal antibody drugs, “mAb1” and “mAb2,” with one small molecule drug, “Drug S,” on the MDAMB231 human breast cancer …

Microfluidic Detection Of Biogenic Amines, Trenton Nagasawa, Partha Vora, Nnaoma Agwu, Joshua Tan

Bioengineering Senior Theses

For our study of Microfluidic Detection of Biogenic Amines, we have designed a microfluidic device to separate and detect different biogenic amine concentrations using amperometric detection. The goal of this project is to identify and quantify biogenic amines form the neural fluid extracted from the pericardial cavity of the Jonah crabs (Cancer Borealis). The device that we designed utilizes polydimethylsiloxane (commonly known as PDMS) along with a carbon paste electrode and a palladium decoupler. Using capillary electrophoresis (CE) along with amperometric detection, we aim to separate biogenic amines and detect them with amperometric detection.

Aptamer Based Hybrid-Assay For Early Stage Disease Diagnosis, Riley S. Parsons, Mari A. Ueno

Bioengineering Senior Theses

The objective of the project is to use aptamers, oligonucleotides designed to selectively bind target molecules, to develop a methodology for building an enzyme-linked aptasorbent assay (ELASA). This assay is designed to detect the presence of a target protein nucleolin that is overexpressed on the surface of cancer cells, and it would act as a novel diagnostic method for the disease. The success of our project would also confirm the feasibility of using an ELASA as a diagnostic tool to detect the presence of thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1), a protein known to experience glycosylation changes in human endometrioid ovarian cancer tissue. Our …

Exosome Engineering And Imaging, Joseph Losacco, Sophie Mcdevitt, Zachary Stickney

Bioengineering Senior Theses

There are many new pharmaceuticals being developed for the treatment of various diseases. One of the major issues these drugs face is the ability to enter a cell or the area of treatment. The current methods for drug delivery are often arduous to complete and do not make it to the diseased area because they are targeted by the immune system. In order to improve the ability for drugs to reach the desired area we propose the use of exosomes. Exosomes are subcellular vesicles that are responsible for the transport of biomaterials or signals within the cell and to other …

Innovations In Traumatic Hemorrhage, Joseph Anthony Ikaika Choy, Nicholas Domek, John “Patrick” Tavelli

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Traumatic hemorrhagic injuries present a great problem to humanity and a challenge to medicine in the modern world. Current methods of treating these injuries in the field are ineffective and often extremely overkill or injurious. These methods are particularly inadequate when applied to the continuous high pressure bleeding that occurs from arterial wounds. Our project focuses on lowering the barriers to entry to innovation in the field of bleeding treatment by creating a low cost model of the human circulatory system. This model can function as a low-cost testing platform for novel bleeding treatments developed by companies and individuals that …

Design And Validate A Synthetic Circuit For Detecting Pathway Signaling In Mammalian Cells, Darisha Jhutty, Nicholas Parker

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Synthetic circuits provide novel ways for scientists to program and probe mammalian cell behavior. This allows for enhanced research tools and chemical sensors. Our project works with an engineered synthetic circuit and monitors the output of the circuit using green fluorescent protein( GFP) and luciferase. Expression of GFP is both quantifiable and observable over a time period in living cells. Luciferase can be detected by an assay in lysed cells to give data on overall expression of the circuit. By measuring and comparing output of this circuit over time, we can create a model to demonstrate the lack of expression, …

A Tale Of Two Nucleases: Using Talens To Edit The Genome Of C. Elegans, Clare Bartlett, Kriszten Kocmond, Erin Root

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Genetic engineering is an emerging technology that offers the potential to prevent, treat, or cure genetic diseases. The technology can permanently alter the genome, providing an alternative therapy to drugs and surgery. Specifically, gene therapy is a promising treatment option for many incurable genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and muscular cell dystrophy. Our project gives rise to a better understanding of TALENs and its uses in the genetic engineering field. TALENs, transcription activator-like effector nucleases, are a genetic engineering technology that can be used for targeted gene modification. They are engineered proteins that can bind to specific sequences of …